weapons:?

[torrenera]

generally speaking it's better a good branded weapon (e.g. a poison whip pre-during lair) or a heavier weapon (e.g. dire flail unenchanted)?
My experience would say the poison whip, I see enemies dying so fast, but I've always read that is the weapon dmg that makes the difference.
I'm confused.
Thanks for any help.

[Sar]

I don't think venom brand damage depends on weapon base damage at all. A fast weapon of poison will destroy anything not immune in early game. Same with elec and drain.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Poison whip is good early game but it is bad vs monsters with rPois (zombies, hydra) and almost useless vs high AC monsters with rPois (orb of fire, ancient lich etc.), that's why people recommend to train some other weapon late game.

fsim does not work properly for venom brand but it can be very useful to compare weapons with all other brands.

[Dioneo]

I'm not sure there can be any general rules about these things. Depends a lot on your skill, on the brands in question and the base-type of the weapon. Brands also differ a lot in usefulness depending on where you are in the game. I find that poison loses a lot of its usefulness after the early game, while something like holy wrath is much more useful in extended.

[torrenera]

thank you all, your suggestions are much welcomed and indeed gave an answer to my question
(bad thing is: I'm more or less drunk and I can't explain properly what I meant in english, but I assure you, you answered to my question ^^)

[CanOfWorms]

please, don't drink and dive (the dungeon)

[torrenera]

indeed i died

[Sprucery]

indeed i died :)

Well, it's ok as long as you can put a smiley at the end. Playing while drunk is fun but it sure leads to unnecessary deaths...

[torrenera]

dammit I should avoid posting on tavern while drunk

[tabstorm]

Venom branded fast/accurate weapons are good in the early game because there are many enemies that you cannot go toe-to-toe with in melee without dying in the early game, but you can hit an enemy a few times and run away while it dies. Later on, a heavy weapon with elec or freezing is ideal, or the heaviest 1h with a shield. The problem with the latter strategy is that quality 1 handed weapons are rare.

[MainiacJoe]

fsim does not work properly for venom brand but it can be very useful to compare weapons with all other brands.

Draining and chaos are two more that don't give terribly useful results from fsim.

[stickyfingers]

For chaos this is a hint. Also fsim is usable for distortion, as tele away and banishment are quite good at dealing with monsters.

[neverEnough]

tele away and banishment are quite good at dealing with monsters.

I'm not experienced with It, just the few times i was stuck there avoiding a banishment by unwield i REALLY hated to run all over the floor hunting for teleported-away free experience :-/
Is that really a good brand?

[Turukano]

I'm not experienced with [distortion brand], just the few times i was stuck there avoiding a banishment by unwield i REALLY hated to run all over the floor hunting for teleported-away free experience :-/
Is that really a good brand?

Yes, it's a good brand from an objective point of view. A bot would probably take a distortion weapon.
No, it's a bad brand from many players' point of view because it's very tedious.

After all, it's your decision.

[ZipZipskins]

Distortion is extremely strong because it either literally kills enemies or functionally kills enemies

As for hunting down experience: if you're playing standard Crawl you didn't need it anyway

[prozacelf]

Distortion is fantastic if you:

a.) Are a stabber or caster
b.) Are with Lugonu and can freely swap

It's not so great in most other cases, unless you really like blinking enemies with ranged attacks out of melee range. It's powerful, but extremely annoying.

[Utis]

indeed i died

Well, it's ok as long as you can put a smiley at the end. Playing while drunk is fun but it sure leads to unnecessary deaths...

True. OTOH, not being drunk while playing implies unnecessary sobriety. It's a coin toss, IMO.

[NhorianScum]

Disto is strong enough to use all game long on almost any weapon provided you're capable of training throwing.

The exp loss is completely negligable.

You generaly want fast weapon + additive brand (disto, pain, electro, early venom/drain) or heavy weapon + multiplicitive brand (speed, vamp, holy, freeze). One hander + shield and throwing or 2 hander + launcher is just preferance/dropluck unless you're playing a naga, formicid, a troll or you're playing extended with tso aka the god of free shotguns.

Antimagic and flame are special snowflakes and uac is uac.

[Sprucery]

Note that heavy weapon + additive brand is ok as well. As long as the base weapon type is ok, additive brand does not make it worse.